Agriculture

The case before the court involved California’s Proposition 12, which voters passed in 2018. It said that pork sold in the state needs to come from pigs whose mothers were raised with at least 24 square feet of space, with the ability to lie down and turn around. That rules out confined “gestation crates,” metal enclosures that are common in the pork industry. The Iowa-based National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation sued.

Female farmers carve out niche in rural Delaware County

Friday’s ruling in the lawsuit by the Sierra Club of Iowa and Trout Unlimited against the DNR and Supreme Beef says the state agency used “illogical interpretations and applications” to approve a nutrient management plan for an 11,600-head cattle feedlot near Monona.

The big challenge now is encouraging counties to launch and fund similar efforts to reduce runoff from Iowa’s 10 million acres of tile-drained farmland and combat the state’s multi-billion dollar problem with nitrogen pollution.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced about $40 million worth of grants for 31 projects in numerous states during a visit to Iowa State University, which is among the grant recipients.

Proposed legislation would require the state to prioritize maintenance of current publicly-owned lands over the acquisition of new lands. Iowa ranks near the bottom of the list of U.S. states for its share of publicly-owned land. About 3 percent of the state is public land.

Practical Farmers has a few billboards in Iowa, but most are white and have a simple message about the organization. But the Land Stewardship Project, based in Minneapolis, wanted to use Practical Farmers’ “Don’t Farm Naked” slogan on billboards in southern Minnesota.

Plant in Vinton once produced tons of the treat